PATIENT IN `DUMMY' CASE MAY BE FREED

Andrew Fegelman, Tribune Staff WriterCHICAGO TRIBUNE

Donald Lang, who has spent most of the last 30 years in jail or mental institutions, might receive a measure of freedom if he can go six months without committing an act of violence, a Cook County judge ruled Tuesday.

Lang, a deaf-mute who twice was charged with killing prostitutes, may also finally be able to spend some time with Christine Cielens, the blind woman who has struck up an unusual relationship with him.

"We want to find a place for him," said Assistant State's Atty. Arthur Samuels. "We don't want to keep him here forever. That has been the goal all along."

Lang did not appear before Cook County Associate Judge Marjan Staniec at Tuesday's hearing in Chicago-Read Mental Health Center, where Lang has lived for 15 years.

Nor did Cielens, who has asked Staniec for a special court ruling allowing Lang to leave the grounds of Chicago-Read to visit her in her North Side apartment.

The visits, she had reasoned, could only help Lang and would be the first step toward allowing him to finally live in a less restrictive environment.

Staniec's ruling would allow Lang to leave the mental center and live in a kind of halfway house.

Cielens' relationship with Lang has included visits to Chicago-Read several days a week and frequent phone calls. The two communicate through a sign language interpreter.

But Staniec indicated Tuesday his office had received a call from Cielens, who is backing away from her request to let him visit her apartment.

"She didn't want to put the court or the staff at Chicago-Read in a difficult position, so she is more or less withdrawing her request," the judge said.

Cielens said late Tuesday, "I just reconsidered it and thought it was an unreasonable request. I don't want to do anything that would impede his goals or do anything that would put his family in the position of having to relive everything."

Born 48 years ago on the South Side and raised in Chicago Housing Authority development, Lang has remained caught in a legal morass.

He was twice accused of killing prostitutes, the first in 1965 and the second in 1972, but both charges were overturned by a higher court. Deaf since birth and with virtually no formal education, the courts found he was unable to communicate with his lawyers to prepare a defense.

But fears that Lang was prone to violence prompted officials to have Lang committed to a state mental hospital. Prosecutors say had he been sent to prison for his crime, he likely would be a free man by now.

His story spawned a book and a TV movie, "Dummy."

Lang still can win some freedom now. But his rampages have yet to cease. Just last February, he attacked a technician at Chicago-Read.

Those who have treated him believe that to some degree the violence is connected to his inability to communicate. He knows only limited sign language.